Italy’s Forest Cover is Larger Than Agriculture Land for the First Time Since the Middle Ages
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For the first time since the Middle Ages, Italy has more woodland than agricultural land.
Forests now stretch across 60,000 square miles of the Italian Peninsula, overly concentrated in mountain areas, but which nevertheless represent the gradual reversion of cultivated land to woodland again. The milestone was officially hit in 2020, but only revealed this week thanks to a report published by National Union of Mountain Municipalities and Entities. The report stresses the forest’s role providing work for free as a major net benefit from this reforestation.
In a single Italian municipality, called Marcetelli in the Rieti Province, where 94% of the land is covered in trees, the combined natural functions of the forests to store carbon, filter water and air, and to prevent erosion, would cost some $9.5 million if industrial solutions had to be sought. Additionally, the increase in forested acreage is creating a somewhat ironic reversal of rural Italy’s emigration crisis. For the last 2 decades, young people have increasingly left mountain and rural-plains areas for the big cities, resulting in the abandonment of marginal land or traditionally farmed/pastured lands, as well as an emptying of small towns—many of which have habitation records going back to medieval times.
Since 2021, however, 932 Italian municipalities showed a positive net migration of 10 per 1,000 inhabitants, with a significant share of these municipalities being located in heavily forested areas. Discounting the coastlines, Italy’s geography is pretty straightforward. The Alps give way to the pre-Alpine hills which fall into the North Italian Plain, which give way to the Apennines until you reach the far south.
These three mountain regions and the 3,598 municipalities nested therein account for three-quarters of Italy’s total forested area, even though they harbor just 13.5% of the country’s population.
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